Redskins owner Dan Snyder says team will create a foundation to assist American Indian tribes

Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder said Monday he's creating a foundation to assist American Indian tribes, even as some in that community continue to assert that the name "Redskins" is offensive.

Snyder said Monday he's creating a foundation to assist American Indian tribes, even as some in that community continue to assert that the name "Redskins" is offensive.

"It's not enough to celebrate the values and heritage of Native Americans," Snyder said in a letter to the team's fans. "We must do more."

The letter states the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation will "provide meaningful and measurable resources that provide genuine opportunities" for Native Americans. The announcement did not state whether Snyder will personally donate any money to the foundation and gave no other financial details.

A major opponent of the nickname said Snyder's move was "somewhere between a PR assault and bribery." Suzan Shown Harjo, a lead figure in a long-running case that seeks to strip the Redskins of their federal trademark protection, told The Associated Press that Snyder is showing the "same arrogance" that he's shown previously when defending the nickname.

"I'm glad that he's had a realization that Native Americans have it tough in the United States," Harjo said. "All sorts of people could have told him that, and have been trying to tell him that for a long time."

Snyder again gave no indication he plans to change the team's name. He said he believes "even more firmly" the name "captures the best of who we are and who we can be, by staying true to our history and honoring the deep and enduring values our name represents."

Snyder has come under unprecedented pressure to change the name over the last year. President Barack Obama told the AP in October he would consider changing the name if he owned the team.

Harjo said the refusal to budge on the name will offset, at least in part, the good that is done with the foundation's money.

"Will (the foundation) do much of anything? No. But it probably won't hurt," Harjo said, "except that it will continue the cycle of negative imaging of Native American people in the public arena."

In the letter, Snyder said he and his staff visited 26 reservations over the last four months. He listed poverty, illness, drug abuse, violence and lack of basic infrastructure as among the problems faced by Native Americans.

Popular Comments

Sooner or later the American Indians need to be responsible for themselves.
They've been more than compensated for whatever land was "taken"
from them. No need to feel sorry for their ancestors hundreds of years later -
many of us had
More..

10:47 a.m. March 25, 2014

Top comment

techpubs

Sioux City, IA

I still believe that Mr. Snyder should remove the current mascot from the
helmets, etc. and go back to the R in a circle. Then he can change the mascot to
a potato or apple and retain the name Redskins without it being offensive.

10:54 a.m. March 25, 2014

Top comment

FT

salt lake city, UT

Redskins is an offensive name and mascot. The team is entitled to whatever name
it chooses and Indians and other Americans are free to call the owner and the
team callous, and ignorant to our country's native american culture and our
history.